Parents Only
by doctoring
Summary: Peter accidentally misplaced his papers for school, so now all of the Avengers know about his school play. They're not just supportive, they're meddling, and Peter doesn't know how to deal with it. / ((Let's just pretend that some of the movies didn't happen, and that everyone is together and got along.)) / A Writer's Month Fic. Trope Prompt: mythology


Tony called a meeting for the Avengers, to discuss recent events. They sounded like isolated incidents, but he wanted to make sure. Towards the end of the meeting, he shuffled through the papers on his desk to make sure he didn't miss anything. He sees two brightly colored flyers mixed into the stack.

"Play? What play? Pepper, did you… wait, no… this is for Peter's school…"

Pepper snatches the papers from Tony. "Peter has a school play?"

Tony tries to take the papers, but Pepper quickly dodged him. Pepper walked away, reading one of the flyers out loud, casually handing off the second copy to Captain America.

"Apparently each homeroom class has to reenact a different mythology, either Greek or Roman! That's so cute! It's like a series of short plays." Piper turns on her heels and says, "Tony. You have to go!"

"I do not! You said it was parents only."

The room erupted into a bigger commotion than Tony has ever seen as Pepper tried to explain that was for Friday's showing. Steve stands and shows Tony his blue flyer. "It's friends and family on Saturday, and I'm certain we all fit into that category," he remarks, gesturing to the rest of the room that's nodding in agreement.

Pepper then looks at the other papers Peter had accidently left in Tony's office. "Oh no! It seems that they're asking parents to help with costumes and such."

"Pepper, don't you dare."

"Fine. We can call up the people who helped make my suit then," Steve replies.

Tony watches at Natasha excitedly talks to Bruce about if a student will act as cerebus of if he should build an animatronic three-headed dog, and as Steve and Pepper discuss costume details, and as Thor recounts to Clint the cultural importance of performance art back on Asgard.

_I guess Thor would understand these myths most of all. WAIT. NO. THAT'S NOT AN ISSUE HERE._

"I can't win… I just can't win…" Tony mumbles to himself, and looks at the letter to the parents asking for their help. He sees the line about lighting and electrical equipment, and immediately thinks of how to turn this into some simple spotlight school performance into something more engaging. "Might as well join them."

Peter rushes into Tony's office the next day, looking for a report he started but left there. He sees Pepper surrounded by personnel, wigs, and fabric.

"What is going on? You going undercover?" He joked.

"No. It's for your school play. We're helping with the costume."

Peter started panicking, trying to explain that no help was needed, before he blurted out, "Wait, how did you find out about the play?"

"We saw the flyer and the note sent to the parents," Pepper gestures to the desk before asking someone if the togas can be adjustable for different sized students.

Peter runs over and snatches up the papers. His report was there, thank goodness, but now he has bigger concerns.

"You know, this was a letter to the _parents_, so you didn't need to do anything. Really."

"Nonsense. We don't mind at all!"

"No, seriously! In fact, this is all parents only. So there's no point in helping if you can't even go."

"We _ALL_ carefully read the flyer, Peter. It's 'Friends and Family' on Saturday."

"All? What do you mean all?"

"All of the Avengers."

"Oh no," Peter fell into Tony's chair. "Oh no… No…"

He tried to convince Pepper to stop trying to help with costumes, and believes he had succeeded, until Thursday after school. He sees a truck with the Stark Industries symbol pull up, unloading a bunch of costumes, wigs, and other such items.

Peter groans inwardly.

_I hope this is it. I hope this is all they do and Pepper and Tony are the only ones to show up for the play._

However, this was not to be the case. On Friday, Peter sees the lighting crew working with a fog machine.

_Since when did we have a fog machine?_

Before Peter could dwell on it too much, Ned runs up and shouts, "Mr. Stark is here and he set us up with an entirely new rig! Isn't that awesome!"

Peter tried to fake his happiness for Ned, but on the inside, he was beginning to worry. He's used to his Aunt's meddling and coddling, but Pepper and Tony? This wasn't good.

As the students scrambled to help set up for dress rehearsals, the drama teacher came in and announced that they needed to gather in the audience chairs for a pep talk prior to their final dress rehearsal.

Peter and the other students sit down, but the room soon erupted into cheers as Captain America walks onto the stage. He starts to give them a speech about their duty as students and how they should be proud of their play.

_Do these kids not realize this is basically the same gimmick as all those videos they have to watch of him? The detention one, the fitness test one, pretty much every single video for every single activity in school!_

After the speech, Captain, Tony, and Pepper all had to depart because of an incident Clint and Natasha were struggling to handle downtown.

Peter was torn between sneaking off and helping, and just staying away from the Avengers so the high school portion of his life can revert to normal.

He opted for the latter.

When he gets home that night, he reflects on the way the Avengers, at least some of them, tried to help his school and the play.

_I know they mean well, but they're like a bunch of meddling parents! That's Aunt May's job!_

_At least I don't have to worry about anything of the sort until maybe Saturday. And at worst, it will just be some awkward parent-like comments._

Friday evening, Peter was proven wrong once again as Clint slides up next to him as he reentered the school. Before Peter could ask what was going on, Clint says, "So when is your class going on?"

Peter had no time to reply when a teacher stops him and says, "Peter, is this your father? I'm sorry sir, but we're not seating parents just yet."

"No! He's NOT my dad."

"Calm down, Peter. I know I'm just your uncle, but that's no way to talk to adults." Clint quickly addresses the teacher at the door while gesturing to people behind him. "We're here to help set up, and we'll gladly step out afterwards and wait until doors are opened."

Peter turns around and sees the rest of the avengers behind him, all in dark shades and baseball hats and other failed attempts at disguises. Each was carrying a prop or some equipment. Peter just fumbled on his words as he watches them walk into the school, happily chattering about other things they plan on doing to improve the school play.

To Peter's displeasure, he was to remain behind stage since his class would be the third to go.

_Crap. Can't do damage control. Maybe I can text Aunt May and see if she can convince them to leave._

Peter peeks his head out to see if his aunt had arrived, just to find her blushing and sitting between Tony and Steve.

_Oh, for heaven's sake!_

Peter paced around the back halls and rooms behind the stage, trying to calm himself down.

_It can't be that bad. It's fine. They're just being supportive, that's all. It's perfectly-_

Peter feels his Spidey-senses tingle, and he rushes down the hall. As he approaches the broom closet, he hears loud mumbling, as if someone were trying to shout but couldn't for some reason. He shoulders the door open and freezes in his tracks.

"What are you doing!?"

Natasha, dressed as the Black Widow, turns to him casually as she tried another knot into the rope. "I overheard these students talking about ruining the play and dropping paint on unsuspecting students." She jerks her head to two canisters of wall paint behind her. "So, I decided to take care of them."

"BUT YOU JUST CAN'T TIE STUDENTS UP!" Peter rushes over and tries removing one of the gags. "Just go, like, tell the principal or something."

"Right."

Peter helps her untie the students before convincing them that their best option was to turn themselves in.

"Whatever the principal does to you can't be worse than what I would have planned." Natasha says, kicking the chair across the room.

"Not. Helping." Peter hisses as the students make a run for it.

Then Peter hears clapping and realizes one of the performances has begun. He rushes towards the stage, hoping he wasn't gone long enough to miss two whole plays. He makes it to the side stage to see that the first class was performing.

He breathes out a sigh of relief until he sees Clint on the opposite side. He was in the shadows, so Peter wasn't sure what he was doing, but he had a bow in his hand.

Peter rushes behind the back curtain, careful not to move too quickly and have his motions seen. As he approaches Clint, he sees that he's giving two students from a different homeroom class a lesson on how to properly hold a bow and arrow.

Soon, the next play began, and the students that were with Clint pretended to fire arrows. Peter was still feeling awkward about the Avenger's meddling in his school program, but he couldn't help but feel a bit guilty upon seeing Clint's proud expression.

Peter's class was up next, performing the story of Persephone. When Peter walked out onto the stage, dressed as Hades, he struggled to hold back laughter at the sound of familiar voices cheering, "Yay, Hades! Woo!"

Around the time he tricked Persephone to eat the pomegranate seeds, Peter looks out into the audience and spots a red blinking light hovering above the audience. He begins to worry but realizes it shouldn't be anything awful since his spidey-senses weren't activated.

When Persephone attempted to leave hell, the stage lights and some house lights became brighter to show the real world, one without harvest due to Persephone's absences. Peter took this time to stick his head out and look at the blinking dot.

_SERIOUSLY!? Aunt May's cell phone videos are bad enough, but Tony or Pepper or whoever had to bring a freaking DRONE!?_

Peter stumbled on his next line, becoming more nervous at the thought that he was being filmed in such a manner. Otherwise, his class's performance was darn near perfect.

As his class cleared the stage, he noticed that a few of the students were eating the props. Peter walked closer and realized that what he had thought was a fake pomegranate was actually real. In fact, all the fruit that was laid out on the table was real.

_It was them. They had to be the one who did this._

Since his performance was over, and the damage had already been done, Peter finally admitted defeat. After the next class was done performing, there was a brief intermission to allow students to switch from being backstage to being in the audience.

Peter easily finds him Avengers family, since _who else would people be swarming around during a school play?_

The rest of the school program went on smoothly, only a few forgotten lines and one fallen fake tree which prompted Tony to mumble, "I told them to use the reinforced ones I brought."

Peter pointedly ignored Tony and Pepper's hushed argument about the students not being able to move 100+ pound props easily between each skit.

Peter was glad there was only two skits left, the horror was almost over, when the current myth being told involved Zeus and his lightning bolts.

A student dressed in white with a lush wig and beard climbed up a tall mountain, a rig Peter knew had to have been built by the Avengers. The student then began throwing Styrofoam lightning bolts at the other students down below, and into the first row of the audience, causing them to laugh.

Peter then heard the chair behind him squeak. He hesitantly looked behind him and saw that Thor had stood up.

Peter tried to gesture for him to sit back down when Thor angrily shouts, "Who is this _Zeus_? God of _Thunder and Lightning_! HA! _I'm_ the god of thunder! I'll show you, you imposter!"

And with that, he causes a storm of lightning all around the school gym. Peter figured some of Tony's electrical and lighting equipment might have involved cord leading outside to an external power source, because he saw it spark and catch on fire, just before the equipment inside started sparking and smoking as well.

The Avengers stood all posed to fend off a threat, as Thor lowered his arms sheepishly.

Then, the sprinklers went off, thus ending the play.

Everyone was ushered outside until they were able to turn the sprinklers off.

Peter was glad it was over, _but not like this._

_I'm going to have to talk with the Avengers later, set some ground rules, let them know that Aunt May does the parenting, not them. They shouldn't-_

Tony claps a hand on Peter's back. "Don't worry, Peter. We'll double check all the details tonight and make sure tomorrow's performance has zero issues."

Peter groans and wipes a hand down his still damp face as the Avengers starts to reenter the building, saying they'll help with the cleanup.

_Really gotta have that talk. But first…_

Peter rushes past them, intent on checking the gym, the halls, and anywhere else that may have bulletin boards or news about the school posted. He ignores the weird looks he gets as he tears down papers and notices around the school.

_Absolutely under no circumstances can they see any flyers about Open House next week._

-the end-


End file.
